


Brother

by Levaaah



Series: Freefalling [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, BAMF Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Communicating, Communication Failure, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dubious Detective Work, F/M, Foreshadowing, Gen, Jason Todd is Robin, Protective Siblings, Romani Dick Grayson, Sibling Bonding, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-23 02:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23804656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Levaaah/pseuds/Levaaah
Summary: Though we don't share the same bloodYou're my brother and I love you that's the truthShe’s lying on her back on a rooftop, she can see the concrete corners of it not too far away and above the familiar clouded Gotham night sky looms. There’s a slight rustle to her side and she tilts her head to see Robin right next to her. A frown tugs at her brow.“Why are we lying on the roof?”“The blast knocked you unconscious,” he says, lips quirking into a sly smirk. “So, I laid down next to you so everyone would think we were chillin’.”
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Original Female Character, Jason Todd & Original Female Character
Series: Freefalling [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631698
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	1. If I was dying on my knees

_** 2013 – September – Gotham **_

Nightingale drops down soundlessly on to one of the rooftops overlooking Grant Park. The park isn’t part of her usual patrol route – her territory is north of Robinson Park around Coventry along the south side of Sprang river and half of Upper East Side all the way to the eastern bridge by Robbinsville. But they’ve all been working overtime lately, with Dick’s attention fully in New York with the Titans, Barbara spending more time with school, and Batman’s absence with the Justice League. It hadn’t been easy, even with Huntress’ occasional help – really the woman was in and out the door so often with B that Nightingale got whiplash from it. Robin hasn’t been in the game long enough to carve out his own territory yet, but she had no doubt in her mind that he’d go for the Bowery all the way up to Newtown. Since it circles Park Row – where he grew up.

Robin lands next to her, a little out of breath, drawing his yellow cape closer around him to keep warm. It’s almost three thirty on a Friday night – Agent A would have her head if Robin were out this late on a school night. But Gotham City wasn’t small, it was impossible for the two of them to cover it all, they’ve been doing what they can which meant they were both pretty tired, Robin more so than her, since she didn’t have school these days. Graduating early and all that.

Right now? They needed a bit of a breather and the twenty-four-hour open food truck that always end up near Grant at this time of night got the best hotdogs in the city.

“Hungry?” She asks, unnecessarily, Robin is always hungry.

“I could eat a dozen chilidogs,” he replies, rubbing his belly and shooting her a grin that does admirably in hiding how tired he really is. Nightingale huffs out a small laugh, grappling around the city on a full stomach was never a good idea. She’d learned that the hard way.

Later, they’re both perched on the lip of another rooftop – Robin on his second chilidog, Nightingale tapping away on her phone, listening in to the radio chatter from the police. It’s a relatively calm night for Gotham that is, which just means there’s no A-listers out and about. Which is a relief in itself, Nightingale could do without Riddler or god forbid Joker breaking out of Arkham. So far her and Robin had stopped seven robberies, one which was a holdup at a liquor store. Five assaults and arrested two drug dealers back in Burnley and under Sprang bridge, respectively.

Robin stifles a yawn once he’s finished his food.

“Alright,” she says, maybe it was time to call it a night. “Let’s catch one of the monorails back up to the car.”

Robin turns to her, grinning, “race ya!”

He kicks off the building and shoots his grapple before she can tuck her phone back into her pocket. Then she does the same, relishing the feeling of wind through her hair, of the G’s that tug at her when she swings. Her legs are longer than Robin’s, so every time they touch down on a building she gains on him a little. She imagines that if Batman hadn’t drilled it into their heads that they’re supposed to not be seen or heard, Robin would be laughing. Instead he occasionally shoots glances over his shoulder, flashing a toothy grin. She’s almost caught up to him when he stops, making her dig her heels into the concrete roof to not tumble into him.

Nightingale follows his eyes down the alley, the only source of light is flickering in the otherwise dark night and amongst the dumpster trash there’s a group of five people dressed in ill-fitting tuxedos, smoking and drinking. Clearly Harvey Dent’s crew.

“Street Demonz,” Robin says, pointing to the approaching mob, a dozen of them. Nightingale narrows her eyes. On a quick glance, they don’t look armed, which is strange considering that neither the Demonz nor Two Face shied away from firearms. There’s a glint of metal in their hands though, knives.

“They’re too close to the street if this turns ugly.” Nightingale says, even in the middle of the night there’s still people out on the street. Not quite as packed as it would be during daylight hours. But Gotham’s nightlife never sleeps. Especially on a Friday night.

“Let’s go!” Robin grins at her, body tensing up for a fight.

“Get in position,” she replies, nodding over to the other side of the alley, “only engage when– “

“When I see the sign,” he interrupts, “yes, _mom_. Can we punch some bad guys now?”

Nightingale huffs, jabbing a finger into his ribs in mock annoyance. He bats her hand away then jumps across to the other rooftop. Below them the two opposing gang members have reached each other, one of the Street Demonz takes a step forward as Nightingale scales down to balance on the lower part of the fire escape railing.

“What’s this then?!” a thug of Two Face shouts.

“We’ve got a message for your boss!” the leader with a jeans jacket and the Demonz emblem on the back shouts, Nightingale spots the subtle hand movement and she quickly reaches for her belt pouch to grab a batarang, the moment the leader pulls out the knife and lunges she throws it. The batarang collides with the guy’s hand, and Nightingale dives into the mess of people.

The first kick catches one of the men unaware, he goes down with a heavy thump and startles the nearby goons into action.

“It’s a bat!”

“Forget her! Get the job done!” Another shouts and Nightingale dodges the first punch thrown her way. A second thug lashes out with a knife in her direction it scrapes against her wrist guards, and she just knows that it’s going to be a bitch to fix it later. Nightingale snaps her bō-staff to its full length, using it to leverage herself up and kick another knife out of a hand, a moment later she hears the grunt of another man further away as Robin drives his fist into his jaw.

“It’s Robin!” someone shouts.

“What gave it away?” Robin mocks, “my stunningly good looks or the mean right hook?” He dodges out of the way and kicks another guy’s knee, there’s a cracking noise that is quickly followed by a yowling curse.

“Didn’t your mom teach you,” Robin starts, before lashing out again with another punch, this time it connects with one of the thug’s ribs. “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?”

“Stop sassing the enemy, Robin.” Nightingale muses, biting back a smile and kicking her foot up one of the Street Demonz’s jaw. He’s definitely watched his predecessor smack talk too much, though the first Robin talked _constantly_ while fighting, and not just insults, but something as bland as _the weather_.

The second Robin’s fighting style is very different from her own, she doesn’t rely on strength as he does, Nightingale is just not built for it, one of the main reasons why she’d picked up a bō-staff, it assisted her lithe body type. Robin however goes from dirty street fighting to Taekwondo in the matter of seconds, using his full body strength. He revels in it and doesn’t hold back. Even though he’s still learning––still growing, his fighting skills are impressive for his age. It helps that he’s in another growth spurt too, at only thirteen years old he’s almost five foot four inches and building muscle mass that would put a body builder to shame. Nightingale’s fairly certain that he’ll be taller than her by the time he’s sixteen.

She spins her staff, ducking another blow that comes her way before jabbing with her weapon, striking another guy straight in the solar plexus – who immediately takes several steps back gasping for breath.

“They make this too easy!” Robin woops, punching a guy in the stomach and then grabbing him by the hair to smash it into the nearby dumpster. Nightingale is fairly certain that his nose breaks.

Thanks to her momentary distraction, a guy with a mohawk grabs her by her cape and tugs, making her loose her footing and the blow to her ribs has her biting down hard on her lip to muffle any pained sounds. The triumphant look on his face is quickly dashed as she knees him in the groin and throws him back against the wall. Someone tries to trip her up and to not fall flat on her ass, she flips herself into a butterfly kick, swinging her staff at the same time. Catching one guy in the chest with her foot and knocking couple of teeth out from another.

Keeping the motion going she tucks into a ball and rolls forward to drive her staff into the back of one of Two Face’s goons that Robin’s running towards. As the thug’s knees buckle, Robin goes high and punches him hard in the jaw, with a heavy thud, the guy clocks out on the ground. When Nightingale straightens up, Robin presses his back against hers – she notes that all of Two Face’s tuxedoed guys are all sprawled out on the pavement, knocked unconscious. All that remain are five of the Street Demonz.

“C’mon guys, are you even trying?” Robin mocks, “maybe I’ll close my eyes and make it even.”

“Shut him up already!” Someone sneers.

Nightingale spreads her feet wider apart, gripping the staff with both of her hands just as one of the thugs springs forward with a knife in his hand, she quickly strikes the blade away and flipping the staff to jab the other end into his hip, then drops to the ground to take his feet out from under him before smacking him in the forehead with the staff, he’s out like a light.

Behind her, Robin laughs as two of gang members grab for him. He ducks, grabbing a hold of one of them to force his momentum to keep going and the two thugs knock each other out with a headbutt that makes a cracking sound.

“Robin!” Nightingale calls out as one of the thugs takes off running.

“On it ‘Gale!” Robin calls back, grabbing his bolas from his belt and spins them before he throws them with practised ease, catching him by the legs, the guy goes tumbling down as Robin runs to catch up with him. Meanwhile Nightingale, feeling grumpy from taking that punch to the ribs earlier makes quick work of the remaining two guys by knocking one of them out with a kick and flipping the other over her shoulder before driving her elbow down his temple.

Robin drags the runaway thug back with his hands zip tied, still conscious and cursing up a storm.

“Figured we’d want some answers,” Robin says, dropping the guys legs and pushing his foot down over his back when the guy tries to scramble to his feet.

“I ain’t telling you nothin’!” he wheezes out. Nightingale hums thoughtfully, leaning against her staff.

“That means you’re going to talk right,” she says, and the guy makes a confused grunting noise when Jason flips him over. “It’s a double negative.” Nightingale clarifies, he just stares at her blankly.

“If you gave this guy a braincell, it would be lonely.” Robin huffs.

“Whatever! You… uh, _kids_ don’t scare me!”

 _Yes,_ Nightingale thinks, _that’s why you ran._

“Oh, really?” Is what she says.

Ten minutes later he’s hanging upside down over a forty feet drop, with one of her grapple lines being the only thing that’s keeping him from falling. Robin’s sat on the ledge next to him, swings his combat-boot clad feet, one hand propping up his head as if he’s studying the guy.

“I–… I won’t tell you anything!” there’s a tremor to his voice, Nightingale knows it won’t take much for him to break. She drags the dulled blade of the knife she’d confiscated from one of the thugs along the line thoughtfully. His eyes widen when she does.

“Did you know it’s possible to survive a forty feet drop.” Nightingale muses, there’s no way in hell that this knife would ever break her lines, but he didn’t know that. “Well, as long as you don’t shatter your skull on impact.”

Robin makes a splat noise; Nightingale would laugh if she weren’t pulling off the silent scary vigilante thing. Instead she just tilts her head slightly, as if contemplating letting him drop.

“You’ll probably rupture a major organ or two, along with broken bones and internal bleeding… But you’ll live,” Nightingale trails off, tapping her lips. “If you’re lucky, that is. Or unlucky, I guess.”

The guy whimpers pathetically, red faced and teary eyed. “The – the boss wanted us to send Two Face a message!”

“Yes, dipstick. We got that part.” Robin snarks. Nightingale sighs dramatically, reaching up to press the blade hard against the black monofilament wire.

“N-No! Wait!” the guy shouts, panicking eyes watching the movement. “Dallas is angry ‘Cos Two Face has been stealin’ territory! He said to make it messy! He said it was a warnin’!”

“What else has your boss got planned?” She questions, lifting the knife ever so slightly off the wire.

“I dunno!” He sobs, then swallows thickly, “Patches! Domingo said something about Patches! B-but I don’t know what! I swear!”

“What do you think, Robin? Is he telling us the truth?” Nightingale flips the knife in her hand, balancing the tip of the dull blade against her finger before flipping it again to catch the handle. Robin kicks his feet again, dangerously close to hitting the guy’s crotch.

“I think it’s a miracle he knew this much,” Robin says.

“It’s true!” he sniffles, “I don’t know anything else!”

“I believe you.” Nightingale murmurs, before punching him straight in the nose, watching as the bone snaps and blood starts welling out of it. “If I catch you anywhere near this again I’ll do much worse than give you a broken nose, understood?”

“U-understood!”

She grabs the wire and slowly start lowering him to the ground, Robin follows silently down the fire escape and once the guy is down, he secures the thug with the rest of the group they’d already restrained. Both her and Robin are gone by the time the police sirens reach the alley.

It’s four thirty when they make it back to the cave. Robin lazily unclips his cape and drops it halfway into the shower room, while Nightingale b-lines it for the computer. She wants to write the report for tonight’s events when it’s still fresh in her mind. Before she reaches the computer however she grabs the anti-adhesive gel to work her domino mask off her eyes, feeling relief once it’s off – don’t get her wrong, she’s more than comfortable in her _Nightingale_ suit but after having the mask over her face for six hours straight there’s nothing nicer than feeling the cool air of the cave on bare skin. Eleanor spots a note written with Alfred’s elegant handwriting next to the keyboard, telling them both that there’s some sandwiches in the upstairs fridge and to not stay up too late.

She smiles sitting down, moving the note away from the keyboard and starts typing away the report for tonight’s patrol. She flags a potential gang war between Two Face and the Street Demonz, knowing that Bruce will get a ping for it even if he’s busy in the Watchtower – if she didn’t notify him about it he’d get furious, all A-listers went through him. She sets a search up for known lieutenants of Two Face, Dent himself and one for Dallas and ‘Patches’. Something must have really riled up the Street Demonz if they’re going after a known villain like Two Face. The Demonz are a biker gang for crying out loud. But if her and Jason could find them quickly it might lead them to the masterminds themselves, which meant saving a lot of innocent lives from the crossfire. Eleanor also makes a mental note to catch up with her snitches too, eyes and ears on the ground wouldn’t hurt.

By the time she’s done with the report Jason walks out of the changing room with damp hair, dressed in a lose fitting t-shirt with ‘Gotham Knights’ sprawled over the back that she suspects belongs to Dick and grey sweatpants, carrying his gear over to the clean-up bench.

“Deal with that tomorrow, Jay.” Eleanor murmurs, pushing away from the keyboard and stretching. “Oh, Alfred left some sandwiches in the fridge if you’re hungry, and good job tonight.”

Jason yawns, blinking a lazily smile her way. “Okay, g’night, Ella.”

“Good night,” she says fondly, watching him leave up the stairs.

Once Jason’s gone, Eleanor starts disengaging the electric defences on her suit, carefully undoing the layer of security as she’s walking over to the changing area. She grabs her phone out of her belt and sends a quick text to Dick, there’s a chance he’s still awake and she hasn’t spoken to him since… Tuesday, besides a quick text here and there.

She’s in and out of the shower quickly, feeling more human by the minute as she dresses in similar clothing to Jason. Though her yoga pants are black and the shirt she steals from the clean laundry pile is definitely not hers. The large ‘Haly’s Circus’ logo and elephant on the front of it doesn’t quite confirm it as being Dick’s shirt either, since she’s fairly certain that he’d had bought them all different sized shirts over the years.

Picking up her costume of the ground she makes her way over to the cleaning bench and before she can decide to be lazy about it she sets to scrub it clear of dirt, sweat, and blood.

Her phone buzzes when she’s halfway done and a second later it starts ringing that ridiculous tune of ‘Dancing Queen’ that Dick had set for himself. On her phone Dick’s face is pressed up against glass because, _“that way you have to answer when I call to let me out of your phone.”_ He’d grinned as if his logic were flawless. Eleanor pops her handsfree into her ear and presses the green accept call button.

“Hello sunshine.”

 _“Hey, pretty bird.”_ He sounds tired, had the text woken him up?

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

 _“S’okay,”_ Dick mumbles, _“wanted to hear your voice.”_

Eleanor smiles, reaching over to check her gauntlet, the one that got scraped earlier. The slash itself isn’t that deep, she notes, it doesn’t even impair the armour.

“Anything exciting happen at the Tower today?”

 _“Well… I kind of wanted to talk to you about that…”_ He says, voice still rough from sleep. Eleanor can make out the faint sound of wind, is he outside?

“About what?”

 _“The Tower, or well… The Titans, I sort of took time off from them.”_ Eleanor bites back a sigh, worrying her lip between her teeth.

“Okay? Dick, you know you don’t have to do this alone, right?”

She’d really hoped that after the fight that he would have gone to his friends for support. Dick was an abnormality amongst the bat-clan, he needed people around him to feel good. Even if it was just the one person, he just wasn’t made to be a solitary creature.

 _“I kind of do,”_ He sounds apologetic about it, _“I’m sorry Ellie. This isn’t –. “_ He pauses, she can almost see him worrying his lips between his teeth.

“I know.” He doesn’t have to explain himself to her, she just wants him happy and safe. There’s a grateful tone to his voice when he speaks.

_“I’m back at Haly’s. They’re back in the States now, figured I could… find myself again, I guess.”_

“Yeah, okay. Just stay safe please.”

 _“I will,”_ she can hear the smile in his voice, _“what about you, and Jason? Everything alright in Gotham?”_

He doesn’t mention Bruce, so neither will she. “Nothing unusual,” Eleanor replies. “Though I have a feeling things are going to heat up soon.”

_“How come?”_

“Street Demonz are making plays against Two Face,” she grumbles, feeling her annoyance grow the longer she messes around with her gear, she’d deal with it later. She desperately needed to go lie down and at least a couple of hours of sleep before she had to get up for her internship at WE’s R&D labs. Or more specifically her internship with Lucius Fox. _(The man’s a genius and she loved to tinker with the latest bat-tech)._

 _“Anything serious?”_ Dick asks, a hint of worry lacing its way into his voice. Eleanor stands and tucks her phone in the pockets of her yoga pants. Debating whether she should tell him or not. On one hand, she doesn’t want to worry him. On the other, she loathes lying to him.

“I’m not sure yet, it might be nothing. Or it might be the start of something.”

_“Does… does B know?”_

“I’ve sent him the report,” she climbs the steps out of the cave. “He’s still in with the JL though.”

_“That’s… okay, just stay safe alright? Two Face is a heavy hitter.”_

Eleanor smiles, “I will, but don’t worry, yeah? I’ve got Jay watching my back. You should see him, he’s good at this. Like scary good.”

 _“That’s nice.”_ She can almost see the grimace on his face. _“Sorry,”_ he murmurs a moment later. _“I do mean that, it’s nice that he’s doing well.”_

Eleanor steps out from behind the grandfather clock’s secret entrance, watching it seal closed behind her. She knows Dick feels jealous, angry, probably a bit confused, and because of that he also feels horrible, because Jason is just a kid. A kid that needs the _Robin_ mantle just as much as Dick needed it when his parents died.

“You know,” she murmurs, “he spends most of his free time looking at training videos of you.” _He looks up to you, idolizes you._

 _“Only the good ones right?”_ Dick laughs, it sounds a bit forced. She takes a turn out of the family room, past the large painting of her grandparents, feeling like their eyes watch her walk. An involuntary shiver runs up her spine despite the fact that the house is far from cold. Eleanor had grown up in the manor, yet she could never shake the feeling of it being more of a mausoleum than a home.

“Only the ones where I kick your ass.” She replies, snapping herself out of the dark mood that had snuck up on her. Dick’s laugh is more natural this time if a bit on the sleepy side. “I should let you sleep.” She adds in an afterthought.

 _“Not yet,”_ he mumbles, yawning into her ear as she climbs the stairs up to the second floor. _“I gotta tell you about the rest of my week too.”_

“Besides going back to Haly’s? Oh, do say hi from me by the way.”

_“Uh-huh, I will. Amélie’s been asking about you. But before I got here I stopped by Metropolis.”_

Eleanor pauses at the top of the stairs, Metropolis was really close, closer than New York where the Titan Tower is located. She swallows back the anger and hurt that stings in her heart. He couldn’t even have just stopped by for a minute? Just to say hello if nothing else. _“I spoke to Clark.”_ Dick continues.

“What about?” Eleanor forces herself to keep walking, to swallow back annoyance, he didn’t need to hear that right now, through the hallway and down the third door to the left, pushing it open to reveal her elegantly decorated room.

 _“About… uhm…”_ _getting fired by Bruce_ , she can hear it from the tone of his voice. _“Dealing, I guess, with B.”_

“Did he have any insight on that front? I’d love to compare notes,” she huffs.

 _“No, I don’t think even Clark has that much figured out yet,”_ Dick chuckles lightly. _“He gave me an idea about the future though.”_

“Something new?”

_“Yeah, a Kryptonian legend.”_

“Tell me,” she murmurs, laying down on the bed, making sure to prop her phone up on the nightstand. The thing was Wayne Tech, designed to withstand combat zones, she’s fairly sure it could be used as a bludgeoning weapon and come out on top. She didn’t want to accidentally break anything by rolling over it.

 _“Uh okay, uhm, it’s about this legend or myth that was cast out of his family, but he was someone that wanted justice and to help those who needed it.”_ Dick starts, his voice a soft lull. Eleanor closes her eyes and can almost imagine him there with her, strong arms wrapped around her in that koala hold she’d never want to get out of, whispering into her ear.

 _“He wanted to show his family that he was better than they gave him credit for.”_ She makes a soft noise of protest, and Dick immediately hushes her.

_“I know you don’t think that about me, pretty bird.”_

“Love you,” she mumbles, insistently, needing him to know just how much. Dick hums in reply.

_“I love you too.”_

“Keep going.”

_“He fought for those who couldn’t fight for themselves, using his talents and skills. Becoming a legend known as Nightwing. Or, y’know, that’s the translation from Kryptonian.”_

“Nightwing,” she likes how it rolls off her tongue. “Nightwing.”

_“You think it fits me?”_

“Definitely.”

_“Do you remember my dad’s leotard?”_

“The blue one,” she remembers how skin-tight it had been, showing off Dick’s lithe acrobatic body. “I remember, it looked good on you.”

 _“Yeah?”_ He stifles a yawn, and not soon after she does the same. Eleanor knows she probably should hang up and get some sleep, but…

“You’ll be great,” she mumbles, burrowing down under the covers, propping a pillow up behind her so she can pretend he’s there. “Proper armour on your legs this time though.”

 _“The first Robin suit was brilliant.”_ Dick laughs quietly, _“the green shorts especially.”_

“Not in winter.”

_“I covered up in winter.”_

“Not with armour, you always said it– “

“cramped your movement- “

 _“cramped my movement-,”_ he chuckles again, _“I know.”_

Eleanor stifles another yawn, burrowing her face into the pillow and groans, “I miss you, so much.” It comes out whinier than she wants it to, but she’s a bit too tired to pretend otherwise. Dick doesn’t say anything for a long while, she almost thinks he’s fallen asleep when he – quiet as a mouse – lets out a soft; _“Sorry,”_ there’s a slight catch in his breath and Eleanor is suddenly wide awake.

“Shit. No Dick, I don’t–, I mean it’s not… _Please don’t cry_.”

Dick sniffles on the other end of the call, letting out a breathy chuckle that sounds way too forced. She curses herself for being so _stupid_. She sits up on the bed, pressing her fingers against the ear piece as if it’s going to change how far away they are from each other.

 _“I’m not crying,”_ he lies, then clears his throat. _“I just… this mess, I don’t know…”_ Dick inhales shakily.

Eleanor wishes she were there with him, or that she’d never agreed to let him go off on his own so she could wrap her arms around him and tell him that everything was going to be all right. To let him cry on her shoulder like he desperately needed, to tell him he didn’t need to be perfect all the time. That it was okay to break a little.

Instead she curls in on herself, closing her eyes tightly, swallowing back the well of emotions that threatens to overwhelm her.

“It’s okay, sunshine.” Eleanor whispers, keeping her voice soft. “It’s _okay_. There’s nothing wrong with how you feel.”

There’s another shaky inhale, a sniffle.

“You’ll always have me,” she says fiercely, “no matter how far apart we are, or how lost you feel. You hear me, Richard?”

_“…I hear you.”_

Eleanor listens to him breathe until it’s more even, then an idea pops into her head.

“Close your eyes.” She murmurs, leaning back against the headboard.

_“What?”_

“Just… trust me, are you laying down?”

There’s a bunch of shuffling on the other end of the call, _“I am now,”_ he whispers, the faint tremor to his voice still present.

“Good. Put me on speaker,” _and just relax_. After a moment she starts talking, about everything that comes to mind. Recalling memories of that time when they were younger and built a pillow fort and ate ice cream until their stomachs ached. About their time at Haly’s, meeting the people there and learning from them. How she’d been tinkering with her work-Ducati to see if she could make it go even faster, how it had ultimately stopped working, blowing up in her face and now she had to rebuild parts of it. About the prank at Wayne Enterprises when they were twelve that resulted in most of the building being evacuated because of the fire alarm going off, how Bruce knew all along that it was them but didn’t mind because it cut the board meeting short. And about her day to day activities with Lucius Fox, about the new EMP they were working on, and some other gadgets that Dick would love.

Eleanor keeps talking until his breathing evens out, and she hears a soft snore that tells her he’s finally fallen asleep. By that time it’s five forty-five in the morning she still can’t make herself hang up just yet. Enjoying listening to him breathe like he’s laying right next to her.

After another couple of minutes she reaches for her phone and ends the call, plucking the handsfree from her ear, staring at the screen. Eleanor gently runs her thumb over the picture of the two of them. Then and only then, allows exhaustion catch up with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter references Nightwing Vol 2 #102 & #103.


	2. You would be the one to rescue me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon: Jason's mother was half Latino hence he knows _some_ of the language.  
> This chapter had to be split in two it was so long, second part comes later tonight!

Eleanor startles awake by a loud rapping against her door, biting back a cry of distress as her heart pounds rapidly in her chest she sits up on the bed, yanking the covers that feels smothering off of her. She’s covered in a thin layer of sweat, mind still racing to the terrible images of her nightmare.

_Cold. Alone. Distraught._

She doesn’t remember the specifics of it, only that it had been about Dick and it left her feeling helpless and hollow. Eleanor rubs her face in annoyance when another rap against the door to her room is followed by Jason’s voice.

“Ella? You awake yet?”

She cranes her neck to look at the clock on the bedside table, the red numbers read ten-o-nine am. Her internship starts at twelve.

“Ella?”

“’m awake, Jay.” Eleanor rasps before she clears her throat, falling back into the bed and wincing when the movement agitates her side. “Door’s unlocked.”

Jason pokes his head through the open door a moment later, sea-green eyes studying her before he steps into the room properly. He opens his mouth and frowns a bit.

“You okay?”

“Bruised,” she explains gesturing to her side, plucking her phone up from beside her pillow. There’s a notification from the Batcomputer that tells her the last known locations of two of the most prominent lieutenants of both the Demonz and Two Face. Though no sightings of the man himself.

The bed dips as Jason kneels by the end of it, she moves her feet away to allow him the space to sit down.

“Nothing broken though?”

Eleanor shakes her head, then drops the phone slightly to get a better look at him. He’s fidgeting, breaking eye contact, and opening his mouth as if he wants to say something. She arches an eyebrow in question, then sits up, ignoring the way her side throbs in pain to cross her legs in a similar position.

“What’s up Jay?”

Jason squirms, frowning. “I… sort of overheard your phone call last night. Uh, not all of it. Just a little.” He gives her a sheepish, apologetic look.

“Is Dick okay?”

She hesitates, meeting Jason’s greenish-blue eyes. It’s funny, most people would say that Jason came off as an angry kid at worst, indifferent at best. But beneath all the street kid bravado he’s really just a big softie. He likes to play it off like he doesn’t care about anything because it’s easier to push people away, to protect himself – to protect his heart that way.

In the seven months she’d known Jason, Eleanor had worked hard on gaining his trust. Showed him that he didn’t have to sleep with his back against a wall anymore, showed him that he could call her family. So, she knew that Jason’s concern for Dick wasn’t out of malice or envy, it was genuine and heartfelt, a need to make sure that the family that had chosen him wasn’t falling apart.

Eleanor wanted to smother him with hugs and kisses because of it.

“He will be, he’s just trying to figure out what’s next for him.” She says. Jason’s eyes drop to his lap, where he’s worrying his fingers together.

“Because I’m Robin now.”

“Yes,” she answers truthfully, Eleanor wouldn’t insult Jason’s intelligence by lying to him. His shoulders drop, fingers still. He’s quiet for a long while.

Then, in a small voice he asks. “Does… he hate me?”

Her first instinct is to pull him into her arms and tell him no, of course not. To tell him that every one of them – her, Alfred, Bruce, _and_ Dick wanted him here. But Eleanor knew that if she showed such a public display of affection towards him, Jason would throw his walls back up and that would be the end of the conversation. So instead she stops herself from exhaling too sharply and in the same tone asks.

“Has he ever given you the notion that he does?”

“I guess… no,” Jason mutters, looking at everything but her. “But, I–… IkindofstoleRobinfromhim.”

“I think of it more like carrying the torch on,” Eleanor says thoughtfully. When Jason finally looks at her again she offers him a small smile. “I know you might think like that now, Jay. But give it some time, Dick just needs to find his balance again.”

“His balance…” Jason repeats, his frown smoothing out a bit. Then after a moments silence, “does that mean that someone’s going to become Nightingale after you too?”

“Maybe,” Eleanor stretches, stifling a yawn. “If someone needs it more than I do.”

She hadn’t really considered giving up her own mantle, maybe it was a bit hypocritical of her to say the things she’d been saying. But Eleanor was fairly certain that if the time came and someone needed the _Nightingale_ name and suit she’d be willing to let it go. It wasn’t like she wanted to be a vigilante her whole life… Right?

Shaking her head, she reaches over to ruffle Jason’s hair; he allows the contact for a couple of seconds before leaning away and giving her the stinky eye.

“I’m starved,” she says, “let’s get something to eat.”

They both get downstairs to find Alfred already preparing breakfast for them, blueberry pancakes – Eleanor is only glad it’s not waffles. She adores Alfred’s cooking, it tastes like home after all, but his waffles are horrid – like paste. She’d never tell him that of course.

After breakfast, her, and Jason head down to the cave, to the training equipment. They warm up and manage to do a couple of gymnastic exercises before it’s time for her to leave for WE. Jason insists on keeping going so Alfred comes down stairs to keep an eye on him. Though she knows that Jason is far from helpless it doesn’t hurt to have a spotter. As she leaves, she hears Jason chatting away while Alfred feeds the bats and that warm familial feeling spreads throughout her body. She pauses briefly by the stairs to just bask in it.

Afterwards she showers, slips into comfortable, yet professional looking clothes and grabs her black helmet to her second _(yes she’s spoiled_ ) Ducati. The bike had been a birthday gift, but even after two months she still couldn’t get over how sleek it looked. With its metallic purple spray paint and the gold coloured rims. Her phone buzzes as she’s straddling it, Eleanor tugs her gloves off and opens it up. A text from Dick.

_11:42 DG: Hey, just wanted to say I love you, and y’know, thanks for last night. I’m a mess. I’m sorry._

With her glove between her teeth she quickly types back.

_11:42 EW: You’re a hot mess, babe, but you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. I love you too._

A second later Dick sends her a smiley face followed by a gif of a red panda surprising another red panda with the text ‘ambush hug!’ written on the top of it. She laughs, shaking her head a bit before stuffing the phone back into her jacket pocket and revving the bike up. Eleanor hopes she never gets over the adrenalin filled thrill of speeding downtown on her bike, even though she holds the speed laws… Mostly.

The rest of the daylight hours goes by fairly uneventfully. Eleanor ends up tinkering with some of the new prototypes in the lab. Her favourite being the small electrical Ping-Pong ball-esque gadget that’s supposed give anyone within five feet of its proximity a shock that’ll knock em out. The only kink her and Lucius are still working on is the fact that it’s a onetime use. The small electrical charge in it literally overloads the circuitry, causing irreparable damage to the device.

After three hours of working, Lucius leaves for a board meeting and she nabs some of the improved smoke bombs before she leaves. A text is relayed from one of her burner phones, telling her that one of her snitches got information for her, Eleanor mentally ads the Bowery to her patrol route for tonight.

When she gets back to the manor around three thirty – she stops by their favourite donuts store on the way, knowing how much Jason loves the chocolate caramel flavoured ones. Even though Alfred would probably turn his nose up at the sugary goods, he knew that they both needed the calories.

Jason’s in the lab section of the cave when she parks her bike, Alfred not far away dusting the trophies. She tries to be sneaky with the box, but Alfred has eyes at the back of his neck and gives her a very disapproving look when she places it down next to where Jason’s working.

“Forty-six seconds,” Eleanor comments when Jason taps the timer and pulls the headphones off his head, the pieces of the countdown clock and the blasting cap that’s supposed to be affixed to the C4 clay laying on the table in front of him. The timer is set to go off in one minute and gives you a nasty shock – instead of exploding in your face if you fail. The headphones are filled with random noises meant to distract you, it’s a rather simple training exercise, but one of Eleanor’s personal favourites.

“I’m still too slow,” Jason complains, glaring at the pieces as if they’ve offended him. Eleanor hum’s noncommittally, she’d been – and still was freakishly good at disarming bombs. It was one of those things that just clicked with her from the get-go.

“I got donuts,” she says, opening the lid to the dozen caramel glazed sugary goodness for Jason to see. Eleanor grabs one out of the box before Jason can get out of his chair, then with her mouth full – she’s glad that Alfred is on the other side of the cave, dusting off the giant t-rex – she says.

“You know the electrical wires for the trigger, you just gotta keep your heartrate low and hands steady and you’ll do fine.”

“Easy for you to say, Miss disarms the C4 bombs in less than twenty seconds.” Jason grumbles half-heartedly, also with his mouth full.

“Just you wait,” Eleanor laughs, “the C4 is child’s play compared to some of the stuff that B’s gonna throw at you when he gets back.”

Jason grins back at her with caramel all over his mouth, looking very much like the carefree thirteen-year-old he’s supposed to be.

Eleanor wonders sometimes what their lives would look like if they weren’t vigilantes, would Bruce have pursued a medical career like his father, Thomas? Or maybe focused more on the family company. Dick would be in his senior year at school, more than likely training for the youth Olympic games or something similar to it. Eleanor would be a junior at Gotham Academy, planning on going to MIT or maybe one of the engineering programs at Harvard. And Jason, filled with so much potential, sharp as a razor. Maybe with his love of books he’d grow up to become a literature professor, or maybe he’d focus his efforts on his culinary skills. Really, Jason was the only other person in the family besides Alfred that could cook a decent meal.

It isn’t until Jason’s fifth donut that said butler appears out of nowhere and decisively closes the box before Jason can sneak another baked heart attack.

“You mustn’t ruin your appetite before dinner Master Jason.”

“Yeah, Jay. Don’t ruin your appetite.” Eleanor snickers, avoiding the kick Jason sends her way.

“I believe that you have an accident to clean up as well, Miss Eleanor.” Alfred says dryly, giving her an unimpressed look. Eleanor definitely _doesn’t_ immediately look to the half sort of exploded engine for her _Nightingale_ bike. When she looks back to the two of them Jason’s shit eating grin greets her.

“Wouldn’t want anything _else_ exploding in your face, right Ella?”

“Little shit,” she growls.

“Language.” Alfred admonishes, looking very much affronted. Eleanor shoots the butler an apologetic look.

“Sorry, Alf.”

Behind him, Jason’s shit eating grin has only widened.

Eleanor launches herself across the small area, diving to grab Jason around the waist but the kid’s faster than he looks and runs down the stairs, she follows a moment later – narrowly avoiding Alfred as he lets out an indignant huff, to chase after her little brother. Unlike their chase on the rooftops last night Jason doesn’t hold back the laughter as they weave between the training equipment, up the stairs to the Batcomputer and then down another set to the training mats. She tackles Jason on them, wrapping her arm around him in a headlock to give him a noogie.

“Oof, let go of me, birdbrain!” Jason growls, struggling to get loose. Eleanor tightens her grip on him in retaliation.

“No can do, scrappy-doo,” she teases back, taking a step back to right her balance when Jason wriggles. That’s her first mistake, the second one is not keeping track of Jason’s feet. Then she’s on her back on the training mat as Jason uses her own body weight against her, downside of having a sibling that’s trained in martial arts. But she’s not giving up that easily.

Before he can run away again she latches on to his foot and drags him down to the mat with her. Pinning him down on his belly and then starts tickling him.

“Give up yet?” she growls playfully, as he tries to pull himself away from her, hiccupping laughter spilling from his mouth.

“Hah–N-never!”

Eleanor keeps tickling him until he manages to wedge himself free from her legs, then instead of running Jason turns on her and tackles her right back into the mat. They play wrestle, both pinning each other several times until they’re both too out of breath to continue and instead collapse, spread out on the mat still laughing, occasionally shoving each other. Out of the corner of her eye she catches Alfred still dusting, with a pleased smile on his face.

She tilts her head towards Jason, “truce?”

“Bribe me,” Jason says, fighting a smile.

“I brought you donuts!”

“You messed up my hair!” he complains, reaching up to try and smooth some of the black curly mess he calls hair. Eleanor snorts.

“You mean rats nest.”

“What? My hair is glorious, thank you very much!” Jason says, sitting up and poking her in the ribs – thankfully not the bruised side. As soon as she acknowledges it though she can feel the faint throbbing, agitated from their play fighting. She props herself up on her elbows.

“How about we go to the Newton Youth Centre after dinner?”

“You don’t want to get an early start tonight?” Jay questions, crossing his legs. Eleanor shrugs.

“It’ll still be a good hour or two before dark, besides, we didn’t go down there last week. It’ll be good to see everyone again.” She grins, tilting her head in his direction. “And the younger kids really liked you reading to them.”

Jason huffs, ears turning a bit red at the praise. “ _Madeline’s_ a classic, ‘course they liked it.” He almost grumbles, some of his Bowery accent slipping into his words.

“I’m quite sure you could have read them the newspaper and they would have loved it anyway,” Eleanor laughs, “it was the voices.”

She sits up properly, “so? What do you say, Jaybird?”

Jason’s eyebrows shoot up at the nickname, then furrows as he blushes and glares at her. “Don’t call me that.” He says, squirming, not looking angry per say, more embarrassed. She’ll definitely call him that again. He nods then once the blush settles a bit. “Okay, but what if we bring the suits and then we can just pick up from Newton, there’s a Demonz hang out in Ottisburg.”

“Sounds good,” she says.

Eleanor is allowed to help in the kitchen once dinner time comes around, Jason insisting on making the food today to give Alfred a break. Of course, the old butler couldn’t just relax and let Jay dictate alone, so he ends up supervising them sat on one of the barstools at the kitchen island. Eleanor can’t cook to save her life; she knows how it’s technically supposed to work but anything she’d ever made in the kitchen that was supposed to be eatable came out… weird. She tried making macaroni and cheese once, it tasted _sweet…_ and she hadn’t had any sugar in it _._ But at least she wasn’t the kitchen disaster that Dick is. He once set a pot of boiling water on fire while trying to make pasta. That’s it, just a pot of boiling water. He’d been banned out of the kitchen ever since.

With both Alfred and Jason in the kitchen to supervise and guide her, they – meaning mostly Jason make a shepherd’s pie, that ends up being really tasty. Both her and Jason insist Alfred eat with them rather than separately. Really, Alfred should know by now that he isn’t just an employee, he’s part of the family.

Afterwards Eleanor spends some time at the computer, going over files and mapping out a patrol route that’ll start in Newton and end in Port Adams, one of Two Face’s usual haunts. It’s a lot of ground to cover in one night, even with the car. She sends a message to Barbara, letting her in on the situation and gets a quick reply of _“I can suit up for a couple of hours, let me know where I’m needed.”._

Eleanor sends her Dick’s usual patrol route including Upper West side.

By the time she’s done with the computer Jason has packed their suits into the trunk of one of the cars that can easily be disguised as a civilian car yet has almost the same amount of protection as the batmobile. Jason, of course, is in the driver’s seat when she gets down to the garage level.

“Move over scrappy-doo,” she says, flicking his ear.

“I _can_ drive, you know.” He complains but hops over to the passenger seat with ease.

“Yeah, pulling up to the youth centre with a thirteen-year-old behind the wheel sounds like a great way of getting social services on our asses.” Not to mention the cops, and the press would also have a field day with it too, Eleanor could see the headlines _“Bruce Wayne accused of child endangerment!”_. (Yes, she’s aware of how ironic that would be).

“I guess,” Jason mutters, refusing to meet her eyes. Eleanor keys the ignition and starts driving. There’s a tension in the car. She knows she shouldn’t have mentioned social services. Jason had bad experiences with them, with abandonment. He hadn’t even told her that himself, but she’d looked at his file when she saw the report of the tires on the batmobile. An abusive alcoholic father, and a mother too high on drugs to protect him. Some of the scars on Jason weren’t from crimefighting. Eleanor’s fingers tighten around the steering wheel, knuckles going white from the pressure. If Willis Todd weren’t already dead, she would have made him wish he were.

“How about you drive to Ottisburg?” She offers as they pass over Kane memorial bridge into Gotham proper, trying to lose the tension in her shoulders. Jason glances at her through the corner of his eyes, jaw clenched. For a moment Eleanor thinks that he’ll refuse her suggestion out of pettiness. Then he relaxes slightly, shrugging as if he doesn’t really care.

“Sure.”

Another minute of unbearable silence goes past before Eleanor caves. She stops by a red light, turning her head slightly to look at Jason.

“What?” he grumbles when she doesn’t say anything.

“Nothing,” her fingers drum against the wheel. She stares at the red light, outside the tinted windows of the car Gotham’s nightlife is slowly starting to seep in. It’s only five o’clock, the September sun still low in the sky. There are more people out tonight, Eleanor notes, probably since the heavy hitting A-listers are locked up in either Arkham or Blackgate. The light turns yellow, then green. She follows the main road for another couple of minutes, takes a left down Penrose street, and then parks outside the centre. This particular one is aimed to at-risk-kids, those who wanted to get away from abusive parents or wanted some place to stay for a couple of hours. They offered anything from counselling to teaching kids how to sow and basically how-to adult. The Wayne foundation supported it. It had taken some time to gain the kids’ trust here – not dissimilar to how Jason had acted when they first met.

Newton Centre is a renovated gym, some of the training equipment had been donated when the Wayne foundation bought it. Eleanor had been going to this place at least once a week for almost three years now. At first, she’d disliked it immensely. She’d been thirteen years old and thought that the only important thing in the world was training as _Nightingale._ It wasn’t until she realised that all the kids that went to the centre wasn’t so dissimilar to herself that she started enjoying it. Coming from money aside – these kids had all kinds of fears and anger in them that the staff and volunteers helped turn into creative thinking.

Once she pulls the key out of the ignition she turns to Jason properly. “About what I said–”

“It’s fine.” He says, still not looking at her.

“Look, I… I spoke before thinking. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories for you.”

“I said it’s fine.” He grits out, fingers clenched in his lap. Eleanor turns away from him, gripping the wheel tightly in return, trying not to match his frustration with her own. She waits, practising the meditation techniques that Bruce taught them silently to herself.

“You know I would never let them take you right? No matter what.”

Eleanor doesn’t know who _‘them’_ are specifically. Social services? The police? Thugs and other people seeking to hurt him. She’d fight tooth and nail for him if he needed her.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Jason breathes in a bit too sharply to pretend to be unaffected by her words, then stills in his seat.

“We’re family.” Eleanor keeps her gaze straight ahead, knowing that if she tries to make eye contact he’d throw those walls up faster than a speeding bullet. Jason doesn’t like having heart-to-hearts, or ‘emotional bullshit talks’ as he would call it. And honestly, Eleanor isn’t the greatest at them either. She doesn’t know how long they sit in silence, could be a couple of seconds or minutes. But eventually Jason relaxes, then asks in a tone that’s somewhat nonchalant.

“Can we go now?”

She releases the steering wheel, then finally looks over to him. Jason meets her eyes for a second, then looks away. That brief second she sees the emotion bubbling in him though, uncertainty, uncomfortableness but also hope.

Message received; he didn’t want to hear anything else. He wasn’t ready for it. That’s okay. Eleanor was patient. She offers him a small smile, just a twitch of the corner of her lip before she unbuckles her seatbelt and opening the door without another word, a second after Eleanor closes the door behind her, she hears Jason do the same.

They enter the building and Jason immediately slips away, more than likely to go find the small library stacked with books donated from several foundations worldwide. The first time Jason had come here with her he’d spent the entire time in the library, sat side by side with a small Hispanic girl who couldn’t have been more than seven. She’d not spoken much English and had hid away from the rest of the kids her age, Jason had spoken – and then read a book to her in Spanish, and whenever he’d mispronounced a word the little girl had corrected him. Which of course led to him mispronouncing a whole bunch just to make her laugh.

With a crooked smile on her lips and feeling so proud, she steps further into the lobby.

“Eleanor!”

The man who calls her name is Steven McKenzie, tall, blonde, in his early thirties and one of the workers at the Centre that got her to enjoy her time here. He has this way about him of making everything being just easy and fun.

“Hey, Steve,” she greets him.

“I’m glad you’re here!” He beams, “we’re just about to start a basketball game, you in?”

“Yeah.” She agrees.

She plays basketball with the older kids until she’s warm and sweaty, at that point someone’s ordered pizza and starts handing it out for everyone to get a slice. After that Eleanor ends up in the sowing room, and though she’s fairly good at stitches, there’s a vast difference between stitching up skin and cloth. The other kids are definitely better at broidery than she is.

“It’s supposed to be a… caterpillar?” Jason murmurs suddenly from behind her.

“A bird.” She argues, pointing with the needle, “see, that’s the wing.”

One of the kids next to her giggles when Jason makes a noise of disagreement.

“Oh right. Yeah, I can totally see it.” He says, sounding more than a little snarky. Eleanor huffs, holding up the cloth to him.

“Alright smartass, you do better.” Jason rolls his eyes but takes the items from her hand then nudges her away from the seat so he can sit down instead. Then he starts to sow, and Eleanor has to admit, he does a better job at it than she does. It does end up looking more like a bird when Jason’s finished, with a lumpy wing. She argues it gives it character, while Jason just hums noncommittally and shakes his head – mouthing ‘no’ towards the kids and making them giggle when he thinks she’s not looking. They spend another three hours at the centre before it starts growing dark outside. Eleanor helps some of the younger kids with their literature homework, Jason bakes chocolate chip cookies –she steals a warm one fresh out of the oven and Jason chases her down with a wooden spoon– with the older ones before they say their goodbyes.

A short drive to an alley to change the car from its sleek black civilian disguise to the dark purple Nightingale themed one. It becomes more armoured, removes the license plate and there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind of who it belongs to with her symbol – a nightingale rearing its wings in flight – painted black on the hood. Getting dressed in her armour in the alleyway is the least favourite part of her day, but it doesn’t take too long and once they’re done, and Robin takes the driver’s seat with giddy anticipation.


	3. And if you were drowned at sea

“We’re looking for a guy named Bad Sam.” Nightingale says as they grapple up to the opposite building of the club that the Demonz like to hang out in, a short drive later.

“Yeah, I saw the profile. He sells drugs to kids.” Robin paces next to her, the dark green of his armoured suit looks almost black against the red chest piece in the dim light of the sunset. There’s a dark look on his face, somewhere between anger and hatred. She knew Robin’s thoughts about people like that and shared quite a lot of them with him. Nightingale lets out a silent sigh, this is either going to go really bad, or without a hitch.

“There’s too many civilians in the bar,” she murmurs, lowering her binoculars. “We’ll have to get the Demonz outside.”

Robin shrugs, “trash the bikes?”

Nightingale nods. They both swing across the small road, dropping down in front of the Harleys. She studies the environment for a second as Robin rigs the bikes up.

“Manoeuvre twelve-b,” she tells the him when he’s done. Robin stills for a moment before he nods and steps back, melding into the shadows. She does the same on the opposite side of the door. Then the bikes light up in a small controlled explosion, Nightingale feels a moment of pride for how neatly Robin set the charge before the doors burst open and men and women in jeans jackets with the Demonz symbol on the back spill out. Shouting and angrily waving around tire irons and bats, it’s not long before she identifies Bad Sam out of the lot. He’s five foot nine inches and two hundred and twenty pounds of fat and spite. He pushes through his own men to get to the bikes as Nightingale tags him as essential to their built-in lenses in the dominos.

“Who the fuck did this?” Sam snarls, waving a revolver around like a toy. Batman would have probably said something menacing to inspire fear. Nightingale doesn’t really have the same flair for the dramatics as both the first and second Robin has, so she simply throws one of the improved smoke bomb into the group of gang members. Enjoying the momentary chaos as they start shoving each other and shouting in panicked voices.

She switches to heat vision and then steps into the smoke. Taking out the first woman closest to her with a chokehold, and the second man by tripping him up and cracking his head on the concrete with enough force to knock him out cold. By the time the smoke clears both her and Robin has taken out two thirds of the group, leaving another three and Sam still standing. Nightingale darts forward in the confusion, snapping her bō-staff to its full length and vaults over two guys to kick Sam’s hand, the one holding the gun. The revolver goes off before she can completely knock it out of his fingers, and she hears a gang member behind her yowl in pain.

Stupid, overconfident. She should have dealt with the gun first. Then Robin tackles Sam to the ground, having already rendered one of the remaining guys unconscious, leaving Nightingale to deal with the last threat. She dodges the first swing of the tire iron, brings her staff up to jab it into the pectoral muscle next to his armpit, and the guy lets go of his improvised weapon as a result. She’s not even out of breath when she brings her first forward and breaks the guys nose, he blindly swings at her with his none-dominant hand in retaliation. Nightingale catches the fist with her hand, twists it until he’s on his knees in front of her, then jabs the staff over his head and knocks him out.

“Put pressure on that wound,” she tells the guy who got shot, thigh, not bleeding too much, he’d be fine eventually, but she throws a small bandage roll in his direction from her utility belt anyway.

Robin is still punching Sam when she turns to look at them. Sam who looks like he’s gone a round with Bane is barley putting up any sort of resistance. When Robin pulls his right arm up again she catches him by the wrist. His head snaps up to look at her, an angry scowl on his lips. Nightingale doesn’t say anything, letting Robin take a couple of breaths to calm himself before he yanks his wrist out of her hand, and stands.

Sam is still conscious when she crouches down next to him. One eye rapidly swelling shut, lip cut and red faced.

“Tell me why the Demonz are making moves against Two Face.”

She gets a groan in reply.

“Sam.” Nightingale snaps her fingers in front of his good eye, watching as he slowly blinks and then focuses on her. “Why Dent?”

“Freak– “ a wet cough interrupts him. “Freak needed to learn we ain’t gonna roll over cos he says so.” Nightingale taps a couple of buttons on her gauntlet, alerting the police to their location.

“What did he do?”

“Bitch,” Sam growls out, glaring at her. “Why should I tell you anything?”

Behind her Robin paces, still deadly quiet. Sam’s eyes flicker with actual fear for a moment.

“Because as of right now, if you get to a hospital quick enough you won’t end up with any long-term damage.” She shifts her knee forward, pressing it against his hand. Not enough to actually hurt him, just enough to make him realize she’s not joking around. “Do you think you’ll be able to ride a bike again if I shatter every bone in your hand?”

Sam swallows thickly.

“There’s a power struggle, internal.” He breathes out, sweat pouring down his face. “Patches,” he curses and spits blood at the mention of the name. “Bastard thinks if he allies with that two-faced freak he’ll be able to take out Dallas.”

“Where is Dallas?”

Sam grits his teeth, glaring at her. She presses her knee down harder.

“I won’t ask again, Sam.”

“I ain’t telling you shit about Dallas!” He sneers.

Behind her there’s a sudden wail of pain, distracting her enough to lessen the pressure on Sam’s hand. Robin’s got a heavy boot pressed over the gunshot wound, the bandage coated red, a dangerously indifferent look on his face. Nightingale knew there was something fundamentally wrong with her, she liked to dish out pain to those who deserved it. Liked the feeling of power she got for having total control over someone. But she never ran interrogations when she was thirteen, she’d only just started doing that. Robin was too young to be labelled a torturer, but if she stopped him now. If she undermined him in front of these creeps, they would get nowhere.

A part of her brain tells her that it’s enough, they’ve got more information now than they had minutes ago. They could put up a search for Dallas on the batcomputer, but it would take time, and if a gang conflict were taking place right in this very moment, it was time they didn’t have. Innocents could get caught in the crossfire.

“Tell us were Dallas is.” Robin says, his tone low and dangerous.

“You keep your fuckin’ whore mouth shut!” Sam shouts, Nightingale shifts her knee down hard on his hand in warning, making the man yelp in pain.

“I-I don’t…” the other man stutters, tears welling out of his eyes in pain as Robin pressed down harder.

“It takes a lot of pressure to break the femur, that’s your thigh bone by the way. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.” Robin presses down harder over the wound, and the guy flails to try and get him off. She swallows back any discomfort, both of them could see that the guy Robin was working over was weak, he’d snap long before his femur did.

“F-fuck! Okay! I’ll tell you anything, just stop hurting me!”

“You shut your fucking mouth Jazzy!” Sam attempts to get up, Nightingale quickly stands, forcing the older man over to his stomach to bind his hands behind his back.

“Speak.” Robin says, she sees him lifting his foot slightly. Coaxing.

“I don’t know exactly –Fuck! I’m trying to tell you man.” Jazzy whines, jolting when Robin again presses his boot down hard. Again, she holds back the instinct that tells her to step in, to take over the interrogation.

“Don’t try to bullshit us.”

“I’m not! I swear! Dallas usually make rounds this time o’ night.”

“You’ll die for this Jazzy!” Sam hollers, “no one betrays the Demonz!”

Uncertainty flashes in Jazzy’s eyes, and she knocks Sam out before he can croak another threat, she then crouches down in front of Jazzy, blocking off the view of Sam on the ground.

“Go on,” she coaxes gently, “I’ve got friends with the police, they’ll put you in protective custody.” She pauses, lets him think. “If, you tell us everything you know.”

Robin doesn’t move his boot. “You _will_ tell us everything you know.”

“Yeah, okay.” Jazzy groans, “Dallas makes rounds, startin’ by the docks west of Coventry.”

“Pier number.” Robin says.

“Ow, shit, pier twenty-seven.”

“Where does he go next?” She prods, then very lightly taps Robin on the knee, hoping he’ll lessen the pressure. He doesn’t look at her, but the relief on Jazzy’s face tells her that he does as she asks.

“To, uhm, Upper West Side, there’s a warehouse on the corner of Schnapp and Fifth. A-after that it’s Port Adams, pier fifteen. T-that’s it! I swear!”

Robin’s foot leaves Jazzy’s thigh, then the former’s fist connects with the side of his temple and Jazzy slumps to the ground. Nightingale lets out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, taking a moment to reaffirm herself. In the distance the sound of sirens is steadily growing louder. She stands, does a quick onceover for any damage on Robin, when she finds none, Nightingale jerks her head towards the opposite building before she aims her grapple and pulls the trigger. Robin follows a moment later.

They run back towards the car, passing by the stream of police cars on their way. She drops down to the driver’s side of the car then pauses, not yet unlocking the vehicle.

“Robin.” She starts, pausing to bite the inside of her cheek. “Don’t do that again.”

For a moment he just stares at her with disbelief written all over his face. “Don’t do what? _Get answers?_ ”

“You know exactly what I mean, and I’m telling you to not do it again.”

“So, it’s okay when you do it?” He scoffs. “’Do as I say not as I do?’” They don’t have time for an argument, she unlocks the car and takes a calming breath to keep from snapping at him.

“I’m older _and_ in charge. If I tell you not to do it again, you won’t do it.” She takes her seat, starts the car, and buckles up. Robin follows a few moments later, movements completely stiff and jaw clenched in anger. Another uncomfortable car ride, Nightingale should explain herself, make him understand why it’s so important that he doesn’t push himself like the rest of them do. But would he understand? She’d been thirteen once too, had thought Batman ridiculous when he refused her assisting him with his interrogations.

Was she being overly cautious? They used violence anyway, be that training or fighting bad guys. Pressing someone for information by applying pain wasn’t that far of a stretch beyond that.

_(Torture, call it what it is.)_

But.

Robin is thirteen. The vigilantism was one thing, an outlet, a way to help him control his anger at the world. Seeing the indifference on his face when he’d pressed his boot on to that gunshot wound, yeah, no. She didn’t like that. At all.

Nightingale is on autopilot, driving to the western docks as these conflicting thoughts running rampant through her mind. Robin is deathly silent throughout the whole thing, glaring at his own reflection in the tinted windows.

There’s a plume of smoke rising into the night sky that’s visible from the southern Arkham bridge, she ignores the impulse to look towards the asylum. She shifts gear, weaving through the late evening traffic to get to the docks faster. There are already firefighters there when they arrive, one of the warehouses on pier twenty-seven in flames and collapsing. A bomb most likley. They’re too late.

“Maybe he wasn’t there?” Robin offers, as she curses under her breath.

“Maybe,” she flips her comm, “Agent A? Did the computer find anything about Street Demonz leader, Dallas?” Nightingale does a sharp U-turn to get back onto the main road, running red lights and definitely breaking speed laws to get to the second location, more than a few angry driver’s honk their horns at her.

“Unfortunately, the last known locations of this ‘Dallas’ is dated a month ago, Miss.”

Typical.

“The computer is scanning for any active camera footage now; I will notify you if I find anything.”

“Thank you.”

It takes them five minutes to get from the western docks to the southern edge of the Finger river and the whole time Nightingale can’t shake the feeling of being too late.

When they arrive at the warehouse it’s pretty easy to find the right one. Bikes that clearly belong to the Demonz are outside the building, so are cars, the unassuming black van type of cars. She doesn’t bother to park too far away, and she’s out of the vehicle as soon as she can. A gunshot goes off and both Nightingales and Robin’s grapple lies shoots out with a _thwip_ towards the roof within seconds of each other.

She jumps through the skylight and the glass shatters around her. In mid-air she readjusts her grapple, shooting it up at one of the support beams and swings down. It all happens in the matter of six seconds, it’s long enough for her to spot the five tuxedo wearing guys with handguns, and the dozen or more dead Demonz. She can tell they’re dead from the gunshot wounds to their heads. Executed in a line.

The second the thugs turns their attention to her she drops the smoke bomb. Anything they would have said is interrupted by coughing and Nightingale disconnects her line, using the momentum to kick the executioner straight in the chest. She grabs him by the hair and smacks his head down into the concrete floor, knocking him out instantly. Then flips towards the closest one out of the four remaining, turning her infrared on as she goes low to take his legs out from under him. The guy falls forward and Nightingale stands, turns, and does the exact same thing to this guy as she’d done with the first.

Robin has already dealt with one guy and is in the process of disarming the second. Which leaves… _where did the fifth guy go?_

She spots him just as he levels his gun with Robin, her breath catches – heart stutters in her chest. She’s too far away, she’d never be able to throw a batarang in time. Or get herself between the two of them, and Robin isn’t paying attention either.

Then the thug drops to the ground like a sack of potatoes as dark grey, yellow, and red swoops down and renders him unconscious with an elbow drop to his collar bone. Robin dispatches his guy easily enough, then tilts his head and grins at their ally.

“Batgirl.” They both say, Nightingale feels relieved as her heart slows to a normal beat.

“I saw your car,” the redhead says, lips quirking in a smile, “thought I’d drop in, say hi.” Her smile then quickly turns sour when she looks at the line of executed Demonz. She kicks the thug she’d taken out over to his back, gives him a quick once over as Nightingale drags the two she’d knocked out and zip ties them together.

“These are Two Face’s thugs,” Batgirl says.

“Yes.” Nightingale nods. “There’s a power struggle with the Demonz. Dent is involved.”

“Dallas isn’t one of the dead,” Robin mutters, grimacing as he inspects those executed. That’s some good news in a sea of bad, hopefully he’s not dead at the last location.

“We need to leave.” Nightingale says, meeting the older woman’s eyes across the small area. “Can you deal with this? Agent A got the details.”

“Sure,” Batgirl replies. “Don’t worry, I got this part of town.”

“Thanks Batgirl.” Robin says. Nightingale moves over to the line she’d abandoned when she’d entered, quickly recalling it into the grapple gun then shooting it up into the rafters again. She gives the redheaded woman a quick nod of gratitude before she repels up.

When they’re both back on the road again, Nightingale can’t help but miss her bike, it would be so much easier and faster to weave through the night-time traffic on it. But the car is safer, and she made a promise she’d keep Robin safe.

“Why do you think Two Face is getting involved with the Demonz?” Robin asks after another sharp turn.

“I don’t know,” she admits, “a power play? Maybe he needs more men for a job he’s planning.” She shrugs, glancing at him out of the corner of her eyes. He’s right to question. Right now, they’re just reacting. They needed to rescue Dallas so that the man could keep his position as leader, even if they incarcerated him. But if he was dead, an all-out gang war was inevitable, unavoidable.

Nightingale reaches over to flip the screen connected to the cave on. A couple of seconds later Agent A’s face appears to them.

“Any news?” She questions, swerving to avoid a car as they pull up on Moench Row.

“I’m afraid not, Miss.” Agent A replies, eyes flickering over what she knows is the multiple monitors of the batcomputer. “So far there has been no sightings of this ‘Dallas’ character.”

“What about Patches?” Robin questions, “he’s Street Demonz too.”

“I will add it to the search.” The butler replies.

Another long shot but, “see if you can find anything on Dent too, any recent hideouts or contacts.”

“Very well. Will that be all?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Agent A nods, the screen goes dark. Nightingale exhales, they’re almost there. It’s straight through Grant Park to Adams’ docks. The tension in the car is still palpable, and they can’t go into the field like this. She wouldn’t allow it. She has to bite the bullet.

“The reason I don’t want you to lead interrogations like that is because you’re young.” She spits out, hoping that Robin’s had enough time to cool down and not explode in anger.

“I’m _not_ a kid.” He grunts, “I grew up in Crime Alley.” Park Row, she wants to correct him, she doesn’t. And as if that makes him less of a kid, he had been forced to mature earlier, yes. But he was still a child.

“That’s not the point, you’re thirteen, you shouldn’t…” He shouldn’t know how to do these things. He shouldn’t have to. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“I didn’t ask for your protection.” Robin mutters back stubbornly.

Nightingale grits her teeth. “You never have to, because I’ll _always_ try my damnedest to keep you safe.”

Through the corner of her eyes she sees him turn to look at her, even with the domino on she can tell he’s narrowing his eyes.

 _“Why?”_ It always falls back to suspicion, always thinking there’s a double meaning. Always waiting for the other shoe to drop. It breaks her heart.

“Because you deserve to have someone looking out for you. For someone to have your back okay?” _Someone that makes sure you’re okay at the end of the day. Someone that you can rely on without expecting to have to pay them back. Someone that loves you unconditionally. You deserve it all._

“I know you’ve got bad experiences with people, Jas-Robin.” She looks at him briefly, before turning her eyes back onto the road. “But I need you to know that–.” She cuts herself off, biting back a grimace as she clicks her tongue. Trying to find the right word. Trying to find _any_ word. Damn her and her emotionally constipated upbringing. The silence in the car feels deafening.

Then.

“I know.”

The way he says it, it’s simple. An easy shrug of his shoulders, eyes watching the road. Two words that shouldn’t make her feel like a weight has been lifted off of her. But it does.

He knows. They’re okay. Or will be.

It’s quiet when they get to pier fifteen. The bikes parked outside a warehouse built over the water and back to back with another building indicate that there’s still some Demonz here. They slip through the upstairs windows; her nose is almost immediately assaulted by the almost sweet scent of…

“Gasoline.” Robin whispers.

Nightingale peers over the railing, in the middle of the lower floor there’s a group of men, four of them. Tied up and doused with the stuff. The floor also seems covered in it.

The second thing she notices is the small tick of a clock, slowly counting down from two minutes. Nightingale curses.

“Get them out, I’ll deal with the bomb.”

Robin nods then vaults over the railing, she hears him talk to the tied-up Demonz as she slowly approaches the device. It’s on the stairs leading down into the large open room. The device doesn’t seem to be connected to anything; the only trigger is the countdown. She doesn’t need to flick on her jammer for any outside signals.

“Dallas isn’t here,” Robin says over the com. “These guys are alive but unconscious though, going to have to drag them outside. Am I good to untie them?” he questions. She peals back the lid, careful of any tripwires. When she doesn’t spot any she hums under her breath.

“Yeah, there’s no sign of any connecting pressure plate triggers.” Nightingale frowns, the wires connected to the timer isn’t linked to anything that resembles any kind of explosive. It’s… “Shit.”

“What’s wrong?” Robin’s voice, tense, worried.

“It’s not a bomb, it’s an electrical trigger. So, whoever set it – Two Face, Patches or whoever, wanted– “

“–wanted to burn them alive.” Robin whistles. “That’s brutal.”

Nightingale hums in agreement, reaching for her bomb disarming equipment stashed in her belt. It should be fairly straight-forward, she only needs to disconnect the timer before it reaches zero. If the person who made it was smart enough they’d have made it sensitive to tampering. But this looks more like a rush job than anything else.

The timer blinks at one minute when she gets to the right wires.

“I’ve got more people.” Robin says suddenly. Nightingale exhales slowly.

“Dallas?”

There’s a pause, then. “Yeah, he’s here. Pretty beat up but alive.”

She disconnects the timer from the trigger, pausing slightly before she drops the LED screen down on the ground. In red numbers reading fifty-two seconds.

“It’s disarmed.” Nightingale calls into her com, Robin grunts in reply.

“There’s still two guys tied up in there. This guy seriously needs to go on a diet by the way.” Robin says, followed by another low grunt. She feels a smile break across her face at the small joke. Cycling to the infrared on her domino and spotting the two heat signatures on the upper level. By the time she gets up there, Robin’s already got another of the Demonz arms slung over his broad shoulders.

“Saved you the little one,” he says, shuffling to rearrange the unconscious biker. “Y’know, since you’re so scrawny n’ all.”

Nightingale huffs, “I deserved that one.”

There’s a flash of white teeth in his returning smile. She hefts the other, _smaller_ , guy’s arm up over her shoulder. Grimacing as the damp sleeve digs into the back of her neck, she follows Robin outside to were the other gang members are still passed out and tied up together. Dumping the last one down and making sure he’s not going anywhere, she straightens up.

“Something feels off.” Robin says his domino wrinkling in a way that tells her he’s narrowing his eyes. Nightingale hums, reaching up to wipe at the gasoline on her neck and shoulders. Then frowns as well. Before realizations sets in.

“It’s not gasoline.” She sniffs at her fingers, “it’s… water?”

Robin mimics her movement. “We didn’t imagine the smell in the warehouse.” He states, crouching down in front of the Demonz and tapping his wrist scanner on. “But you’re right, they’re not covered in gas, it’s water, from the harbour. Which admittedly could just be as bad…” he chuckles. “We should head back in, search the place.” Robin stands again, walking back towards the warehouse, she follows behind him.

“Two groups, two substances, two minutes.” Nightingale says. “That’s all Dent’s M.O. Then why…?”

When the realization hits her she’s not fast enough, so her only option is to grab Robin’s arm, yank him back and tuck him against her to use her body as a shield as the second bomb goes off, and everything goes dark.


	4. I'd give you my lungs so you could breathe

When Nightingale comes to, she’s not hurting per say but there is a ringing in her ears that she just knows is going to become a headache.

She’s lying on her back on a rooftop, she can see the concrete corners of it not too far away and above the familiar clouded Gotham night sky looms. There’s a slight rustle to her side and she tilts her head to see Robin right next to her. A frown tugs at her brow.

“Why are we lying on the roof?”

“The blast knocked you unconscious,” he says, lips quirking into a sly smirk. “So, I laid down next to you so everyone would think we were chillin’.”

Nightingale blinks, rolling her head back to stare up into the night sky and opening her mouth, then closing it again, like a fish. _Did he…?_

“Did you just quote ‘Scrubs’ at me?” Her voice sounds incredulous, even to herself. Robin chuckles lightly then sits up.

“How are you feeling? You were only out for like ten minutes.” There’s a slight worrying undertone in his voice. Nightingale wiggles her toes, her fingers, tenses her muscles up and then relaxes again.

“Besides a headache, I’m okay.” No broken bones at least, she’s probably got more bruises though, besides the one on the right side of her ribs. She props herself up slowly on her elbows. “What about the Demonz?”

“Cops.” Robin shrugs. “Dallas was still out when they got here.” He adds.

“So, we got nothing.” She rests her arms on her knees. Groaning. “Which means we’ll have to talk to the police.”

“You really think that Two Face won’t be able to get to Dallas in police custody?” He stands and extends a hand down to help her to her feet.

“I’ll send a message to Gordon.” She goes through her gear, makes sure nothing was damaged in the blast. Robin huffs next to her, stretching and popping several knuckles. She grimaces at the noise.

“Beats going over to the precinct and talking to the guy, honest cop or no.”

Nightingale hums noncommittally, sending a message to the Captain to keep an extra eye on Dallas and to forward any information he might have on Patches and Dent. She doesn’t get a reply, but she knows he’s seen it.

The rest of the night is uneventful compared to the early chase. They keep an ear out for anything Two Face related but hear nothing. They stop a couple of robberies and assaults. Scare away a couple of kids trying to spray paint an old building – really, it’s more about getting them out of the almost collapsing building than anything else. By the time it’s four in the morning they’re running on fumes and Nightingale decides to call it when Robin almost twists his ankle in an easy swing, even though he vehemently refutes doing so.

To her surprise, when they return to the cave, the first person they run into is her father in his civilian clothes. He’s by the computer when they get up the stairs, not even turning around to say hello to them as he taps away at what she can only assume is some report or other. Nightingale nudges Robin towards the showers before she starts working the domino off her face.

“Report.”

Eleanor purses her lips. The impulse of being snarky is high, but she tones it down and goes through what they’ve done tonight, what they know of Dent’s plans. Which admittedly isn’t that much.

“You didn’t account for the second bomb.” Is what she gets when she’s done talking.

“We got everyone out, and– “

“That’s not the point Eleanor.” Oh, joy. A dress down at the ass-crack of dawn. What she really wanted right now. “You should have known better. You _should_ have anticipated it. Whatever evidence in that warehouse was lost in the explosion and the resulting fire.”

“I know that.” She’d beaten herself up about it in her head for the rest of the night. “I made a mistake– “

“Mistakes get you killed.”

Eleanor bristles. “ _I know that_.” She repeats.

Bruce finally turns to look at her, jaw set stubbornly. “ _Do you?_ You could have gotten Jason hurt. Or worse.”

“For the record,” Jason pipes up – both her and Bruce aren’t surprised to see him, still fully clothed in his uniform, bar the domino. “I’m fine. And I don’t need a babysitter.”

Both of them ignore him. “What do you want me to say? I’m sorry?”

“I don’t want you to say anything. I want you to do better.” Bruce stares at her with his infuriatingly blank face she’d come to loathe in the past couple of weeks.

“You made too many mistakes.” He continues when she doesn’t say anything. “You’ve gotten sloppy. I’m benching you.”

For a moment the silence in the cave seems unbearable, for a moment, she doesn’t even recognize his words. Then as the pressure reaches boiling point, she snaps.

“ _What?”_

Bruce doesn’t say anything. He simply stares her down with that unreadable face of his. Eleanor’s fingers clench, unclench, there’s an unbearable hotness in her chest that she recognizes as hate because he can’t _do_ this to her.

So, she tells him so.

Bruce levels her with an unimpressed raised eyebrow. “I just did.”

“I should have left with Dick.” She snaps, feeling a small measure of satisfaction when her father’s carefully crafted mask cracks slightly and there’s a hint of anger behind his blue eyes. It’s a double-edged sword though because Jason flinches and that ounce of satisfaction turns into regret.

Her body feels taut, tense with residual adrenaline from the night. She wants to fight, she realises. Wants to punch and kick and hurt Bruce just like he’s hurting her now.

(There’s a small whispering voice in her head that thinks he’s doing this for her. Eleanor could have died because she didn’t think of the second bomb. _Jason_ could have died.)

But they’re not going to fight, there’s already a dismissive look in his eyes.

“Get changed and get out of my cave.”

“That’s it?” No arguments? No conversation? Should she be surprised?

“That’s it. You’re not going out in the field again until I think you’re ready for it.”

Eleanor straightens up, and in a childish display of defiance throws a mock salute that even though he’s turned around back to the computer, she knows he sees. Jason doesn’t meet her eyes when she walks past him into the changing room, leaving a trail of her equipment behind her in silent protest.

The water is shockingly cold to begin with, but the numbing feeling steals away the burning anger coiling like a venomous snake in her belly. She wants to shout and cry and throw a tantrum at how unfair it is. At the hypocrisy of it, because how many mistakes hadn’t Bruce made in his career. Eleanor doesn’t understand why he’s doing it, not the benching, a part of her understands that bit. (Even though she’s furious about it).

But she doesn’t understand why he’s pushing her away. This is how it started with Dick, arguments that ended with one of them storming out – usually Dick. Then fights that almost came to blows. Then her best friend and boyfriend had left, and Eleanor had no idea if he even wanted to come back.

Her father had trained himself to see patterns, so it had to be deliberate. Did he want to push her away the same way he had Dick? To be alone? If so, why bring Jason in? There are no answers to these questions, despite knowing Bruce Wayne for her whole life, all sixteen years of them, they’ve never been close. He’s always been distant, cold. There’s a joke in the Superhero community that Batman is more of an alien than Superman. Right now, Eleanor’s thinking that they’re right about it.

Once Eleanor finishes showering and dressing, she then gathers up her gear again because she’s too OCD to leave it all over the place. Eleanor doesn’t bother cleaning it though, just throws it down on the bench and leaves the cave without another word.

She doesn’t go to her bed after that. Instead she pushes the door open to Dick’s old room. It looks exactly like he left it. Clothes strewn over the bed, desk chair and in a trail out of the closet, the bedding itself a mess. There’s a stack of old CD’s in the middle of the room with a half-filled notebook next to it. The Flying Grayson’s poster hanging on the wall between the desk and the walk-in closet. The desk itself is filled with paper, a couple of books and open box with different types of make-up sticking out of it.

Eleanor steps inside, closing and locking the door behind her. She curls up in the bed, pressing her face into the pillow and breathes in the lingering scent of her boyfriend, citrus shampoo, and that ridiculously expensive cologne she’d bought him for his seventeenth birthday.

And wishing desperately that he were there with her.

When Eleanor wakes the next day the first thing that comes back to her is Dick’s scent all around her, so she reaches out behind her on the bed for him, only to find the spot cold and empty. It’s enough of a wakeup call to shake the fog from her mind and she sits up on the bed. Stifling a yawn and rubbing at the side of her head, hoping to somehow negate the headache building behind her eyes.

She takes another longer shower, with the heat turned up to be almost scalding and lets the pressure knead at her tense muscles before she dresses (stealing a shirt from Dick’s wardrobe that fits her pretty nicely because she’s nostalgic as fuck) then goes downstairs and starts rooting around in the fridge for something to eat. It doesn’t take too long before Alfred shows up – she swears he got some sort of sixth sense for whenever someone’s in _his_ kitchen.

“Good morning, Miss.”

Eleanor sneaks a peek at the clock, taking a bite out of the pear she’d stolen out of the fridge, eleven am. A bit surprising, but not an unwelcome one, she does feel a bit more rested than normal.

“Good morning, Alfred.” She greets the butler back, taking a seat by the kitchen island. He eyes the fruit in her hand.

“A bit more of a solid breakfast is in order.” He says, “waffles, perhaps?”

“Erh-…” Eleanor hesitates, taking another bite of her fruit to avoid replying. When Alfred then raises an eyebrow with a glint in his eye she knows he’s messing with her.

“A sandwich then.”

She nods, and Alfred starts pulling out ingredients and a frying pan. Before she knows it she’s got a cup of tea placed in front of her, it’s Japanese sencha to be exact. One of her favourites. She breathes in the steam from the cup, feeling her shoulders relax from the sweetened scent. Alfred doesn’t say anything as he moves around the kitchen, it’s one of those rare moment were Eleanor actually enjoys the silence. But as the minutes tick by, there’s this niggling question that starts burning into her brain. She tries to distract herself by listening to the sound of bacon popping in the pan, of the knife in Alfred’s hand as he cuts fresh tomatoes and mushrooms.

“Do speak your mind, Miss.”

Her lips curl in a hesitant smile, are they absolutely sure Alfred isn’t a meta? Mindreading or some sort of precognitive powers perhaps.

“Have you ever thought about quitting, Alfred?”

There is a slight pause in the movement of his hand before it resumes. “I have indeed.”

She takes a sip of her tea.

“Three times, to this date.” He continues. “Once in the days of my service to Master Thomas. Once before your birth and once before yourself and Master Dick took up your respective mantles.”

He places a plate in front of her, bacon, mushrooms, and tomatoes amongst other things, an (almost) full English breakfast. Minus the baked beans and black pudding. She couldn’t really stomach those.

Eleanor murmurs ‘thank you’ and prods at the food with her fork. If she could give it a wild guess, the first time had been because of her grandparent’s deaths. The second because Bruce had been nineteen when she was born and the third time he’d considered quitting because Dick had been nine and she’d been eight when they’d become _Robin_ and _Nightingale_.

“Why did you stay?”

“Because I was needed.” Alfred replies, as if it were the simplest most obvious answer ever. Eleanor pops a piece of bacon into her mouth and chews it slowly. Alfred was needed, first raising Bruce and then again with her.

Was Eleanor needed now?

She thinks about leaving. Just going to the garage, getting on her bike and speed out of the city. Go find Dick, it would just be the two of them, working at the circus or just traveling with no rules to hold them back. It’s a realization that has her pausing with the fork halfway to her mouth. The day dream of her and Dick, a simple silly life. It almost knocks the breath out of her because she _wants_. She wants it so badly.

But.

She remembers what it was like before Dick had moved in with them. How lonely she’d been. Yes, Alfred had been around. Bruce less so, but he hadn’t been completely absent. Eleanor had been an abnormality at school. The rich kid without a mother, raised by the family butler because Bruce spent most of his time traveling the world. Not that the last bit was common knowledge, but it was Alfred who drove her to and from school. Alfred who cooked her food and helped her with her homework. Eleanor hadn’t even known that her father was Batman until she was eight.

Bruce was just absent. It was normal. Of course, when she’d started school she’d quickly come to realise that it was anything but normal. Gotham Academy was a private school for rich kids. But there was rich and there was Wayne rich. Eleanor had been a quiet, polite child, with a slight British accent because that’s how Alfred spoke. The other kids had mocked her for it behind her back. She had a couple of friends, and she wasn’t exactly bullied but she was still the quiet, polite, and weird rich kid.

Then she’d lost those friends too for living a double life, but it had been fine because Dick had been there.

And that’s what it boiled down to, if she left now, Jason would be alone just like she’d been alone all those years.

Eleanor couldn’t do that to him.

Bruce might not need her. But Jason did.

She takes a sip of the tea, watching the butler clean up the kitchen from her barstool.

“Thank you Alfred.”

“The food is to your liking then?”

Eleanor laughs quietly, nodding when he looks over towards her with a glint in his eye. Truly, the family wouldn’t have lasted long without Alfred Pennyworth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter names are after lyrics from the song 'Brother' by Kodaline.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and leave a comment or a kudos if you liked it! <3


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